AUSTIN, TEX. - Eternal is a hellhole. Or at least, it was shortly after midnight last Thursday.

There was the club's sauna-like temperature, for one thing. And the broken glass everywhere. But mostly, there was the chaos behind the stage.

The Flaming Lips, who'd been popping up unannounced all over town, had just finished another rapturously received set. Dirty Pretty Things, the British band fronted by former Libertine Carl Barat, was due up next. But owing to a bizarre design flaw, matters had ground to a halt.

Inexplicably, Eternal's only bathrooms are in a corner directly behind the stage. And so, as beer-guzzling concert-goers made a dash in that direction between sets, they collided with roadies trying in vain to achieve the quick changeover required to make any festival run smoothly.

The result - aside from a head-turning temper tantrum by a stagehand in a Santa suit - was that Dirty Pretty Things started playing around the time they were supposed to leave. And with heavily hyped Brooklynites Clap Your Hands Say Yeah up next, club management waited only a few songs before punting DPT from the stage.

That might have been a good thing for the band, which wasn't exactly lighting the place on fire; the ensuing standoff gave it a bit of anti-authoritarian flair. But for those of us who'd spent a sweaty hour waiting for them, it was rather annoying.

I raise this because, with the possible exception of waiting in line to register, it was pretty much the only annoyance in the four days I spent at the twentieth edition of the South by Southwest. And, at a time when I was just starting to take North America's premier music festival for granted, this show was a reminder of just how remarkable everything else really was.

***

The Lovely Feathers make me smile. Watching the fresh-faced Montrealers' two frontmen playing off each other at Club de Ville, a lovely little outdoor venue set into limestone cliffs, it was hard not to feel all was right with the world. Having seen the Feathers a couple of times before, that was to be expected. The surprise was how much else made me smile as well.

There were the Subways, who come off like the Vines Lite on disc but absolutely destroyed a Friday night set before a couple thousand surprised fans who were mostly at Stubb's (a barbecue joint with a sizable open-air venue out back) to see bigger-name acts. They may look like a pair of high-school students, but Billy Lunn and bassist/girlfriend Charlotte Cooper have all the rock star moves to go with their youthful exuberance. By the time they'd closed their set with Lunn hopping atop the monitors, climbing a stairwell and brushing past security into the crowd, they'd achieved one of those "did you see that?" buzzes that bands come to SXSW hoping for.

There was the Duke Spirit, the Brits who should stop getting lumped in as another Velvet Underground tribute band and start getting recognized for putting on one of the best no-frills rock shows going. There were the Cribs, a Gallagheresque brother act oozing laddish appeal. There were the Charlatans, the Madchester survivors gamely mixing new material and classics even as Tim Burgess' voice slowly gave out under the pressure of four shows in two days.

That was just the Brits. Then there was Okkervil River, the local favourites who sound a bit like Bright Eyes if Bright Eyes rocked a little harder. And the Elected -- Rilo Kiley's Blake Sennett, complete with cowboy hat and pencil-thin mustache, playing his heart out to prove that it's not just Jenny Lewis who can branch out. And also the M's -- energetic retro-popsters whose method of having everyone but the drummer sing in unison sounds gimmicky, but comes off charming. And the Gossip, dance-punk upstarts whose appeal may soon extend well beyond what appears to be a very strong lesbian following. And on and on.

With 1,400 acts in a four-day span, others found their smiles elsewhere - in the odd bit of hip-hop, electronica or country. But it's not just the individual acts that made for giddiness. Nor was it just the gorgeous venues, the friendly locals or the copious amounts of free beer. It was also the sense that we were at the centre of something special: a celebration of a indie scene that's stronger than it's ever been.

And if there was anything that could cause the occasional frown, it was that nagging question: How long until the bubble bursts, for the festival and the movement alike?

***

There were times, not so long ago, when an indie-rock gathering would have been ranked slightly ahead of comic book conventions on the cool list. But the movement's explosion, courtesy of everything from downloading to the political climate, has now made Austin the annual place to be. Closed off to cars each night, the 6th Street entertainment strip felt like Bourbon Street with bands instead of breasts.

Naturally, there are excesses - the corporate presence, the limos cruising town, the mansion parties. But while it's no longer about unknown bands trying to find record deals, it's also not the "corporate jack-off party" that The Gossip's Beth Ditto proclaimed it. The schmoozing and partying is nice, but the real draw remains the talent.

Keeping it that way is a whole other matter. SXSW's organizers have done a commendable job of preserving the festival's integrity -- booking the right acts, controlling the crowds and keeping the sponsors from taking over. But in the half-century of rock 'n' roll, no movement has lasted. And if the indie scene finally goes over the top and loses its luster to greed or hubris or cliché, SXSW will likely follow.

Or maybe, if we want to get really ambitious, SXSW will save the movement from itself. Maybe, instead of prompting smug self-satisfaction, spending four days a year taking in the remarkable volume of quality acts on the go will prompt the indie world to jealously protect what it's built these past few years.

Maybe all that free beer has taken its toll on me, or I'm still delirious from the heat in Eternal. But the optimist in me thinks we might still be smiling our way through SXSW for years to come.